Telegram icon
Telegram icon

Telegram

Maximize your messaging experience with efficient communication, speedy delivery, and optional end-to-end encrypted Secret Chats. Engage in unlimited channels and groups up to 200,000 members. Enhance chat management and media sharing with Telegram Premium and its exclusive benefits. All core features remain free.

Telegram Desktop

Cost / License

  • Freemium (Subscription)
  • Proprietary

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Online
  • Android
  • iPhone
  • Android Tablet
  • HUAWEI AppGallery
  • iPad
  • Apple Watch
  • Android Auto
  • Linux Mobile
  • Android Wear
  • PortableApps.com
  • FreeBSD
  • Apple Car Play
Telegram iOS #1
Telegram iOS #2
+17
Telegram iOS #3
Telegram alternatives  
2136likes
328alternatives
45articles

Features

Properties

  1.  Lightweight
  2.  Free Speech
  3.  Support for Themes

Features

  1.  Encrypted Chat
  2.  Stickers
  3.  Chat Bot
  4.  Large File Transfer
  5.  End-to-End Encryption
  6.  Video Calling
  7.  Multi Device Support
  8.  Channels
  9.  Dark Mode
  10.  Bots
  11.  Share Videos
  12.  Secret chats
  13.  Cloud based
  14.  Integrated File Sharing
  15.  Folders
  16.  Animated stickers
  17.  Private Chat
  18.  Persistent History
  19.  Custom themes
  20.  Voice messages
  21.  Multiple languages
  22.  Video Conferencing
  23.  Public groups chat
  24.  VoiP Calls
  25.  Encrypted calls
  26.  Search by tags
  27.  Two-factor Authentication
  28.  Multiple Account support
  29.  Self Destructing Messages
  30.  Portable
  31. IFTTT icon  IFTTT Integration
  32.  Cloud Sync
  33.  Instant view
  34.  Chat organizer
  35.  Chat history
  36.  Auto-delete
  37.  Messages in cloud
  38.  Built-in Photo editor
  39.  Voice Chat
  40.  Based on phone number
  41.  Customizable Themes
  42.  Custom Backgrounds
  43.  Sync Contacts
  44.  Hide chat
  45.  Progressive Web App
  46.  Contact Folders
  47.  Cross-Platform
  48.  Cloud platform
  49. Android Auto icon  Android Auto integration
  50.  Support for GIF
  51.  Text messaging
  52.  Encrypted VoIP calls
  53.  Private messaging
  54.  Push to talk
  55.  Anonymous Secure Filesharing
  56.  GPS Location Tracking

 Tags

Telegram News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent News

Recent activities

Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: Telegram receives both positive and negative feedback. Users praise it for its cross-platform support, security features like secret chats, and ease of use. Concerns arise over default encryption, closed-source server code, and potential privacy issues as data might be accessible to Russian authorities. While some users find it more reliable than other messaging apps, others criticize its open-source claims due to limited availability of source code and encryption on desktop platforms.
Top Positive Comment
nintendogo
11

Excellent messenger for those who always want to be in touch .

Top Negative Comment
Johannes Deml
21

While the client itself is open source, there are a lot of parts of telegram that aren't. It is not possible to look through the whole process of one client writing another. I think to make that problem more clear telegram should actually be put in the category Free and not open source.

ChaosDrop

I'm questioning the "Open source" as well. Even the client isn't really "Open source" any more at least not the one they are using. The provide an open source code base on Github but you can tell by there releases and updates that they themselves are not using it in a very open manner.

Johannes Deml

Thanks for changing the label to Free, I think at least for now it fits way better than Open Source. Anyways we will see on their website they are claiming that eventually they want to make everything open source even though I doubt it.

Martin Ligabue

they can't put their encription code open source, so exept this is opensource

Johannes Deml

Thanks for changing the tag to free, I think it has the correct labeling now.

Martin Ligabue

ups, I didnt noticed it, Im new in this site and Im trying to understand it, so please be patient

tuva-hayabi

From the Telegram FAQ:

Q: Why not open source everything? All code will be released eventually. We started with the most useful parts — a well-documented API that allows developers to build new Telegram apps, and open source clients that can be verified by security specialists.

Johannes Deml

Well, nice that they want to do it at some point, but as for now, the security-critical parts are not open source. As long as that is the case, the tag should be free not open source.

tuva-hayabi

I totally agree to Johannski. All code will be released eventually is wishy-washy.

Laslo Lodnar
0

No matter what anyone says, Telegram is the best messenger in the world. Hands down.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Arsen Ibragimov
0

The best messenger!

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
jtn0626
0

Good alternative to WhatsApp in my opinion

anonymous94984834
1

personally love it. basically whatsapp alternative. if it were decentralized like matrix then i doubt i could find people because it would make things more complicated for ordinary people. where i live, this service is most popular following whatsapp. the main reason i use telegram is because it allows custom clients, that alone is enough.

people complains about privacy and transparency, but look at other services, are those as popular as this? people around me never even heard of matrix. i hope telegram stays the way it is and not complicate for ordinary

Dakota_Nomad
-2

supporter before the 1B users

7 of 135 comments

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What is Telegram?

Telegram is a messaging app created by former VK icon VK creators with a focus on speed and security. It’s superfast, simple and free. It is like SMS, but more powerful.

You can send messages, photos and videos to people who are in your phone contacts (and have Telegram). You can also create groups for up to 200000 people or channels for unlimited subscribers.

Your chats are not encrypted by default, which enables other people to see what you are writing. You can enable a "Secret Chat" to enable end-to-end encryption.

Telegram offers a Premium plan too: by subscribing to Telegram Premium, users unlock doubled limits, 4 GB file uploads, faster downloads, exclusive stickers and reactions, improved chat management – and a whole lot more. At the same time, all existing features that users have come to expect and rely on for nearly a decade remain free. Moreover, non-premium users will be able to enjoy some of Premium's benefits: for example, download the extra-large documents and view stickers sent by premium users, as well as tap to increase counters on premium reactions that were already added to a message. There are different prices for the Premium subscription based on your country, also if you buy it via the @premiumbot you don't have to pay the app store fees.

Telegram's security model has received notable criticism by cryptography experts. They criticized the general security model of permanently storing all contacts, messages and media together with their decryption keys on its servers by default and by not enabling end-to-end encryption for messages by default.

Telegram's client-side code is open-source software, whereas its server-side code is closed-source and proprietary. The service also provides public APIs with which developers can access the same functionality as Telegram's official apps to build their own messaging applications.

Telegram also provides a bot API for programmers to create different kinds of Telegram bots. Bots are simply Telegram accounts operated by software – not people – and they'll often have AI features. They can do anything – teach, play, search, broadcast, remind, connect, integrate with other services, or even pass commands to the Internet of Things.

Telegram information

  • Developed by

    AE flagTelegram FZ-LLC

  • Licensing

    Proprietary and Freemium product.

  • Pricing

    Subscription ranging between $4 and $6 per month + free version with limited functionality.

  • Rating

    Average rating of 3.7 (117 ratings)

  • Alternatives

    328 alternatives listed

  • News

    45 news article related to Telegram

  • Badge

    Get an embeddable badge for Telegram

  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • Arabic
    • Belarusian
    • Catalan; Valencian
    • Dutch
    • French
    • German
    • Indonesian
    • Italian
    • Korean
    • Malay
    • Persian
    • Polish
    • Portuguese
    • Russian
    • Spanish
    • Turkish
    • Ukrainian
    • Uzbek

AlternativeTo Categories

Social & Communications, Security & Privacy, Office & Productivity, File Sharing, Video & Movies, Travel & Location, Remote Work & Education

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Our users have written 135 comments and reviews about Telegram, and it has gotten 2136 likes

Telegram was added to AlternativeTo by tabakis on and this page was last updated .